10/04/07: Reflections on Gandhi’s Birthday…by Carol Lukens of Wausau - clukens@charter.net

Reflections on Gandhi’s Birthday…

by -- Carol Lukens (pulbished in City Pages, 10/4 , p.10) - clukens@charter.net 

 Four and one-half years after the American invasion of Iraq, statistics and polls point to our current state of crisis.

 According to a recent Gallup poll, 67% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the U.S. is being currently governed, the most negative assessment since 1973 – in the midst of the famous Watergate scandal. Although the National Priorities Project cites the current war costs at greater than $455 trillion dollars, ongoing costs for veteran long-term health care, interest on debt, and replacement of military supplies brings the estimated daily cost to $720 million, or $500,000 per minute. Five hundred thousand dollars per minute that could instead feed the hungry, clothe the countless poor, and provide health care for the 47 million uninsured Americans. As we were once forewarned by former U.S. President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower:

 Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

 But that’s simply in terms of economics.

 If we look at the cost in human lives, Department of Defense figures cite 3,798 American deaths and 28,009 wounded thus far in Iraq. Yet the National Security Archive indicates over 150,000 disability claims filed by veterans of the current wars in and around Afghanistan and Iraq, thereby suggesting perhaps many more. Could this seeming discrepancy point also to the many psychologically wounded who aren’t as immediately apparent as the physically afflicted? Add to that the countless friends and family members devastated for each of the wounded and dead, to equal hundreds of thousands of Americans that have been tragically affected in all. And that is counting only American lives.

As for the Iraqis, actual civilian Iraqi deaths documented by Iraq Body Count since 2003 total 73,794 to 80,428. That is, 73,000 to 80,000 innocent Iraqi mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, infants, children, grandparents… and these are merely the documented deaths. In reality, it is probably many more, considering reputable studies estimating Iraqi deaths at literally hundreds of thousands, not to mention many thousands of refugees continuously being displaced. According to United Nations reports, an estimated two million Iraqi refugees are now living outside their country, with more than 50,000 leaving each month, 7,000 of whom we have agreed to take in.

 Next on the list are recent reports of U.S. military generals, both active and retired who, out of their own sense of moral and patriotic duty, are breaking tradition and risking termination of life-long careers to publicly criticize the administration’s handling of this war and reveal the unjust policies incurring tragic consequences on soldiers and their families.

And last but not least, let us not forget the other important danger Eisenhower also warned us about – the privatization of warfare – in yet another of his famous quotes:

 In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Here, all one need do to observe such misplaced power is read recent news reports about the activities of Blackwater USA. Blackwater, a private military company was initially awarded a $27 million no-bid contract to guard Ambassador Paul Bremer early on in this war, and since has been protecting other senior State Department officials in Iraq with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Perhaps most horrific are the reports, some by U.S. military, of Blackwater employees mercilessly killing innocent Iraqis, with no effective oversight or prosecution of its abusive use of force. Rather, according to recent testimony of investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, such misconduct has actually fueled the violence in Iraq and is placing U.S. military soldiers in further danger.

Despite these deplorable tragedies, amid cries of “Impeachment” and “Bring the Troops Home” by some, there’s a seeming malaise among a great many Americans to truly hold our leaders accountable, to take action and exercise their civic rights and duties. 

 Have we become too comfortable, complacent with the unjust actions of leaders we elected in good faith to represent our interests and wishes? Leaders we entrusted to represent our beliefs? Or is this seeming complacency a general feeling of powerlessness, a question of how possibly a single person might enact social change?

 Yet if we truly want societal change, perhaps we should heed those words of Dwight D. Eisenhower and pay particular attention to the construct of “misplaced power.” And as we celebrate the birthday (October 2^nd) of Mohandas K. Gandhi, revered Indian model of peace and nonviolence (ahimsa), we will see that he also used the construct of power to show us a better way. For Mohandas K. Gandhi believed change was possible, though he did not say it would come without sacrifice. Rather, Gandhi believed societal change would come only when each person realized his or her true dignity and the dignity of others, was willing to act with integrity to seek the truth, and refused to take part in actions that cause violence to others. “It has always been a mystery to me,” he wrote in his autobiography, “how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow-beings.” Thus he believed the responsibility to act with integrity and nonviolence rests on the members of the community, so that it is not possible for a citizen to blame the leaders of a country if the country is perceived to be acting violently without implicating the citizen him or herself in that accusation.

 Gandhi’s construct of “misplaced power” was called “brute-force,” the power to oppress, injure, and harm, and he expressed an important ethical difference between that and the construct of “soul-force,” the force of love and nonviolent passive resistance in solving conflicts. Specifically he explained this difference in terms of ends and means, for when using either kind of force, Gandhi suggested, the ends and means are inseparable. For example, if we use violence to force others to comply, they are likely to rebel at some point; so rather than resting assured of peaceful agreement, we will likely reside with fear of retaliation by violent means. Consequently, we have obtained an exact result – fear and violence, from the means – violence, we used.

Although Gandhi endorsed nonviolence, he did not advocate allowing ourselves to be oppressed; quite the contrary actually. He believed it most important to resist oppressive and unjust laws, but to do so in a way (such as non-cooperation) that does not inflict harm on others, even should we have to suffer ourselves. “The first principle of non-violent action,” he asserted, “is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating… One has to speak out and stand up for one’s convictions. Inaction at a time of conflagration is inexcusable.”

 Gandhi’s construct of soul-force provided then a very important element – that of freedom, known also as swaraj. For true power, he believed, did not consist in oppressing, injuring or harming oneself or others, but in liberation and inner freedom. As expressed in his fundamental writing, Hind Swaraj, “It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves. It is, therefore, in the palm of our hands… The Swaraj that I wish to picture before you and me is such that, after we have once realized it, we will endeavor to the end of our lifetime to persuade others to do likewise.”

For Gandhi, the construct of power as soul-force was essential for systemic change. As noted by Louis Fischer in Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World, Gandhi realized that true societal transformation could only occur subsequent to personal transformation. Fischer explains: 

 
Village uplift was Gandhi's First Freedom. Over 80 percent of India lived in her villages, and they were poor, illiterate, diseased, discouraged. Peasant liberation from destitution could not be the achievement of the small upper class or a gift of the foreign power. The peasants had to win it. Gandhi craved for his country a psychological metamorphosis which would give it inner freedom and, then, inevitably, outer freedom, for once the people acquired individual dignity they would insist on better living and nobody would hold them in bondage. 

 

Hence, the power of soul-force first helped free the people of India from their own feelings of powerlessness, and then ultimately from British colonialism in a nonviolent revolution that eventually led to their independence. And if we look to this model, seeing many of ourselves as peasants – discouraged with the present crises, perhaps we, too, need a psychological metamorphosis to liberate us from our malaise. Perhaps when we realize our own individual dignity we will then see it in all others, insist on better living for ourselves and the oppressed, speak out and stand up for our convictions, hold accountable those participating in and perpetuating unjust and unethical policies, and no longer allow feelings of powerlessness to keep us clenched in bondage.

But attaining this freedom would surely not come without sacrifice, as Gandhi noted, so although it is possible, is it probable? For such sacrifice would require much self-discipline. To begin, a Gandhian solution would require self-transformation for each individual, a commitment to develop non-violence interiorly in order to be able to embody non-violence. And once some matter of self-discipline had been achieved, it would require self-reflection to determine specific actions to take, individually and collectively, to refuse further complicity in practices and policies, both institutional and personal, which harm us and others. In other words, Gandhi’s suggested “non cooperation with everything humiliating.”

Regarding the war in Iraq, if enough truly wanted to end it now, one Gandhian method might be to refuse enduring another year of countless deaths and devastation, waiting and hoping for a newly-elected official to bring some magic solution, because that type of solution – looking to another to solve the problem – frees us from personal commitment, yet perpetuates our powerlessness. Instead, one personal commitment would be to refuse continued funding of this war with our tax dollars. Certainly not an action without risk and sacrifice, but if enough were truly committed to directly request our legislators to cease funding immediately and they refused, withholding tax funds would make it difficult for the war to continue.

Another option is public action. When war is in a distant land where one cannot see the immediately devastating effects, it is far easier to continue living comfortably day after day. Perhaps if more of us who are committed against the war and appalled by its effects were willing to publicly voice opposition and take non-violent action such as participating in die-ins, sit-ins and boycotts, others would join. There is always risk, but when, we must ask, do other’s lives, American soldiers’ and Iraqis’, demand some risk of our own? Perhaps some of us should consider not working for the arms industry or holding stocks in companies that manufacture weapons. And how might we hold our government officials to account? Oughtn’t we hold them to the standards of law and start publicly demanding their impeachment? Or even trials on war crimes charges?

 But all this would, of course, require a stronger commitment to community and collective self-sufficiency, and would definitely cause discomfort in placing before our very eyes the many that are being oppressed by our complicity in this war and a war-based economy.

As we celebrate the birthday of Mohandas K. Gandhi then, let us also reflect on his words, “The future will depend on what we do in the present… Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence. Hatred can be overcome only by love.”  If we truly want peace for ourselves and for others, are we willing to make the sacrifice? Are we willing to risk our own discomfort in this time of crisis and conflagration in order to offer swaraj, life-giving empowerment and dignity for all?